Ceiling mounted fan and light units have long been used, usually in a highly ornamental manner, to provide a gently cooling breeze and useful illumination. The earliest units, exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 585,250 (FIG. 1); 623,801; 2,079,942; and 2,119,398 mounted the light source below the fan motor and rotating fan blades. Particularly when placed in rooms having lower ceiling heights, this resulted in a large fixture height limiting useable headroom and produced uncomfortably harsh, direct ambient lighting. Additionally, such configurations resulted in deleterious disturbances to air flow in the vicinity of the light source.
More recently designers of ceiling mounted fan and light units have preferred to mount the light source above the fan motor and fan blades. However, with the light source mounted above the fan blades, an immensely distracting flickering of the illumination occurs as the light is periodically blocked by and then passes between the rotating fan blades.
Attempts to overcome this flickering effect have centered about relocating the light source to permit its illumination to pass downward other than through the area occupied by the fan blades. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,427 a safety guard surrounds the perimeter of the fan blade tips and a plurality of light fixtures are mounted thereto in a plane slightly above that of the fan blades. Similarly in U.S. Pat. No. 2,547,896 a circular fluorescent lamp having a larger diameter than that of the fan blades is mounted in a plane above the fan blades. U.S. Pat. No. 2,581,185 discloses a combination light fixture and fan in which the fan blades and a circular fluorescent lamp are substantially co-planar, the lamp surrounding the fan blades.
I am aware of only one other approach utilized to eliminate the flickering effect. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,201,153 a light bulb is mounted directly above fan blades that are transparent so as to preclude periodic interruption of the downward travel of light. This design still produces flickering because of changes in the optical density between the air and the fan blade material.
Neither the approach of utilizing transparent fan blades nor that of repositioning the light source remedy the difficulties induced by direct lighting, particularly in a manner that provides for a compact unit. I have found that by mounting the light source directly above the fan blades and surrounding the fan motor, and by utilizing a shield to direct all light other than downwardly through the fan blades, a compact ceiling mounted combination fan and light fixture is produced that furnishes pleasingly soft, indirect lighting. I have also found further operator convenience and space savings achieved through the use of a single control rod coaxial with the fan motor shaft for controlling both fan and light operation. Heretofore these controls have been separate and, as respectively shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,073,598 and 2,581,185, mounted either beneath or outside the perimiter of the fan motor and fan blades.